Typical web-based information services help consumers manually search for specific businesses or categories of businesses in particular locales multiple times using text-based indexing and retrieval techniques in combination with geographic information systems. In response to goal-oriented searches (shopping in Denver, travel to London, and moving to Mexico) typical web-based information services will return a set of results about achieving those goals that include stories, sites and forums but not a composite set of results (lists of clothing stores, restaurants, and beauty salons for “shopping in Denver”) tailored to meeting specific goals for particular consumers. While text-based indexing and retrieval techniques provide facilities for finding business based on business names or business categories, they base their results primarily on web site content, however, they generally do not make use of knowledge about achieving local commerce goals, the industries relevant to different businesses that satisfy those goals, the structure of businesses, the relationships among businesses, the physical surroundings of businesses, the interactions between businesses and consumers, and the interaction among consumers for achieving those goals. Knowledge-based technologies can provide a framework for defining, developing and storing such knowledge, but such technologies have not been used to develop consumer/business interaction knowledge databases and have not been integrated into consumer oriented web-based information services.